publishing

I really like Stephen Colbert this week. (Well, more than I usually do.) Most people don’t care about what’s happening between Amazon and Hachette (which is understandable, but unfortunate!), but when Colbert goes to bat… well, demons run when a good man goes to war. You can read all about his war against Amazon here, which is the latest development in the ongoing kerfuffle between the mega online bookseller and book publisher Hachette. The stakes? The future of a great publisher, the livelihood of everyone who works in the book industry, including authors, and, ultimately, readers like you.

The sticker Stephen Colbert wants you to download from The Colbert Report website (http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/) and put on things you don’t buy from Amazon.

There are valid points on both sides of the issue (after all, low low prices on Amazon get people buying books, but they don’t really support the publishing industry in the process of providing great books in the first place), but I’ll just say that I think Amazon could benefit from understanding how much work and money goes into creating books, and how valuable publishers (and editors and agents, etc. etc. etc.) are to that process.

If you’re a YouTube star with a robust fan base, you just got one step closer to publishing a book.

This NYTimes article from yesterday is all about a new imprint called Keywords Press — a joint venture between Simon & Schuster’s Atria Publishing Group and the Hollywood United Talent Agency — that wants to publish books by YouTube entertainers.

Judith Curr, the president and publisher of Atria, says signing YouTube celebrities “gives us access to a whole new talent pool.” Credit Nancy Borowick for The New York Times

There is precedence for YouTube stars to publish books, and it is common practice for book publishers to mine for manuscripts from well-known individuals with built-in followings, but it’s really interesting to see a whole imprint dedicated to the gambit and to even tweak their publishing models to follow YouTube-like practices; most of these books will be crowdsourced, and they’ll be shot out into the marketplace faster than other books.

In the article, iJustine (one of five YouTube stars who have already signed deals with Keywords) says, “I’ve always wanted to write a book, but the proposal process is kind of crazy [….] I would say, ‘Why can’t I just do it?’ That’s what we are used to doing online.'”

I just hope these YouTubers are also good writers. Having a talent for making videos and a ready-made audience is great, but there’s something to be said for having the chops to write well, too. Being sellable shouldn’t be the only prerequisite to getting published. I also hope there’s still room in the publishing industry for all the aspiring authors who haven’t had time to build their own customer bases because they were, you know, busy learning how to write a good book.